In part one of this series, we had a look at a few reasons why you should be blocking online advertisements on your network and devices. From malvertising attacks and privacy-invading tracking systems to just being an outright annoyance, online ads and trackers are a nuisance that provides an attack vector for malware authors, compromise user security, and plainly, diminish the browsing experience.
In the second part of this series, we’ll cover a few of the common ad blocking utilities and how to best configure those tools for maximum effectiveness. We’ll take a look at tools that are easy enough to set up and run on mom’s computer, as well as a few tools that may require a bit more expertise. And later on, we’ll discuss a few tools that do a great job of blocking ads and protecting your privacy, but may require a shift in mindset before realizing the benefit.
So, go grab your cup of Joe, sit back, and dive into the conclusion of “Everybody and their mother is blocking ads, so why aren’t you?”
A note about filter lists
You’ve read the reasons why it’s important to have a robust ad blocking policy on your network. You understand the risks that are posed by malvertising attacks and data-sucking exchange networks. You now want to configure ad blocking within your own network—but where do you start? Your first stop is to look at filter lists.
Several of the tools we’ll cover use sets of rules, known as filter lists, to help determine what should be blocked. These lists are created by individuals, open-source communities, and private organizations. Popular websites to obtain filter lists include the Adblock Plus subscription page and Filterlists.com.
Some filter lists can include specific, narrow qualifiers such as “coin miners,” while others are comprised of large subsets of data targeting multiple facets of advertising and tracking. Filter lists are also broken out into languages to help block ads in various regions.
When the browser requests a website, that site—and all the domains requested by that site—are checked against the filter list prior to being displayed. If a domain is on the filter list, then the ad blocker won’t allow the information to pass, effectively blocking the content. But, too many filter lists will result in too many look-ups. This results in a slowing of the browser and increased response times of websites. Users should be mindful when adding filters lists as to not add more than is required and not add duplicate lists.
Adblock Plus
The popular ad blocking extension made by Eyeo is the simplest and most popular of the tools we’ll cover—and it’s easy to see why. Adblock Plus has been blocking banner pop-ups, advertisements, and trackers for the last 12 years. The browser extension works in popular browsers such as Chromium, Mozilla, and Safari, and is easily configured to block a variety of threats. Adblock Plus runs with minimal interruption on PCs (and yes, this is actually configured on my mom’s PC). The company even has its own Adblock Plus browser that can be used on mobile devices (more on this later).
Though Adblock Plus works out-of-the-box without any other configurations needed, it’s best to dive into the settings to make a few adjustments.
Download
After using one of the previous links to install Adblock Plus to your preferred browser, the options menu can be accessed by clicking the red ABP icon that appears at the top of the browser. From there, click the Options button at the bottom of the window.
Adblock Plus encourages publishers to join their Acceptable Ads program. The Acceptable Ads program allows publishers who adhere to a prescribed set of guidelines an opportunity to have their ads shown to users who are using Adblock Plus. While this feature has caused a bit of flak for the company, the subsequent creation of the Acceptable Ads Committee has helped create a dialogue surrounding responsible advertising.
While those things are fine and dandy for publishers, we’re looking to block advertisements, so let’s disable those “acceptable” ads.
Set up
From within the General tab of the Settings window, uncheck the option for Allow Acceptable Ads. This will also be a good time to enable the Privacy and Security settings for Block additional tracking and Block social media icons tracking. Both settings will help prevent trackers from harvesting information about your browsing session (since social media buttons are used to track user behavior).
The default filter lists are shown under the advanced tab. Adblock Plus comes pre-loaded with several popular lists, including: EasyList and Fanboy’s Social Block List. Additional filters can be downloaded and installed from the Adblock Plus subscription page, but the default lists will sufficiently weigh function and convenience to provide a modest ad blocking experience.
Test
That’s it! Just a few clicks are all that is required to get a baseline setup of Adblock Plus. Let’s test it out and see how it looks.
That’s pretty cool, huh? The advertisements in videos, articles, and search results are all removed. And because the ad content isn’t being displayed, the page response time is faster and the desired content is reduced to a smaller portion of the landscape. This reduces the time spent scrolling around the page.
Sometimes it doesn’t work
Though Adblock Plus works great to block ads on most websites, sometimes it may not. Ads may find their way onto the page, or notices may be shown advising to disable the ad blocker.
Read the full article at Malwarebytes Labs
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